


Pretty Life

by Sab



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Episode Related, Multi, domestic ennui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-10
Updated: 2001-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What a pretty life you have / oh boy it's a pretty life you have<br/>And I would need a map just so I could navigate the backyard</p><p>Home is very ordinary / I know I was born to lead a double life<br/>of murder, strife, and misery<br/>- Liz Phair, "Perfect World"</p><p>I don't believe him, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Life

**Author's Note:**

> Post- "The Cut Man Cometh."
> 
> Punk helped! She's a sneaker pimp too.

He was in a great fucking mood. It was three am and he felt like he hadn't slept for weeks, but he could practically feel the world unrolling out in front of him and he was ready for it, and he wanted to fuck someone or get fucked and be in a great fucking mood -- a great mood for fucking -- when he did it.

So after he'd made himself a drink with milk in it, after he'd kicked off his shoes, after he'd checked his voicemail after he'd come home after his best day on the air in recent memory, after he'd held his own against the Cut Man and Dana and the broadcast that wouldn't end and the fight that was over before it started, after all that, at three o'clock in the morning, in his kitchen, he leaned his forehead against the cool enamel of the refrigerator and held his drink to his chest and let himself laugh a little about it all.

He was ready to move on, because he'd kicked ass today and he was a star and he wanted to fling open his windows and tell the population of New York that Casey McCall -- the great Casey McCall -- was ready to take 'em on, bring it on, all of 'em. He was beat and smiling and wanted to show off.

The phone rang, and he rolled across his forehead to turn around and pick it up. "Yep."

"Case? You're up?"

"You sound surprised, Danny."

"It's three in the morning."

Casey took a draw off his White Russian and leaned on the counter. "Is now when I point out that a) you're awake, and b) you called me?"

"That I did."

"Quite," Casey said, raising his eyebrows, clinking ice in his glass.

"Tell me," Dan said, and Casey wiggled his shoulders a little and shifted the phone to his other ear. "We did -- that was a great show tonight. Right?"

 

"Well, the fight was over in seven seconds," Casey said.

"But us. We were good."

"We were great," Casey said. "We were the greatest."

"You wanna -- you wanna go out somewhere and celebrate?" Dan asked.

Casey set his drink down. "It's three in the morning," he said.

"I know. But this is the city that never sleeps. I'm pumped, Casey. I mean, I'm wired. I'm, like, I'm jumping up and down."

Casey closed his eyes and laughed a little more at the picture of Dan in sweatpants and socks, jumping up and down in his livingroom and pissing off his downstairs neighbors. "I'll bet you are," he said.

"I'm serious," Dan said, sounding far away from the phone. "We should ride the wave, you know?"

Casey considered a minute. But going out and getting drunk with Danny when he felt so damned good, when he'd done a great show and he'd still managed to tell Dana he wouldn't go out with her tonight, that he was ready to move on, meant there was a good chance he'd do things he really didn't want to do and didn't want to be accountable for. Even though he was in a great fucking mood. "Yeah," he said. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?" Dan sounded even further from the phone now, somehow both loud and small.

"Where are you?" Casey asked.

"I'm trying to stand on my head," Danny said. There was a crashing sound, and then Dan was close to the phone again. "I'm telling you, man, I am wired!"

Casey laughed. "Go to sleep," he said. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay, I'm just saying --" There was another crash, and Dan hung up on himself. Casey hung up too.

He floundered toward the bedroom, rocking against the walls on the way, and he unbuckled his pants and gave his dick a little squeeze through his boxers, just to check. Then he collapsed on the bed and kicked off his slacks and started at the buttons on his shirt.

The phone rang again, and he leaned back and fell over and clamored for the receiver with pillow in his mouth. "Mmmyeah?"

"Sorry about that." Danny sounded breathless.

"No problem," Casey said, sitting up again and slipping his shirt off his shoulders.

"I...fell."

"On the floor?"

"A little," Dan said. "It turns out I can't do a handstand."

"I could have probably told you that," Casey said. He peeled off his t-shirt and lay back on his bed in his boxers, and he gave himself another little squeeze, just to check, and he got hard in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Dan asked.

"I was going to go to sleep, I was thinking," Casey said. "Seeing as we have to, you know, go to work at some point tomorrow."

"I just, I don't know, man, I feel so good right now," Dan said. "I feel like the world is my oyster!"

"The world is your oyster," Casey repeated. "You know, I never really understood that phrase. Because -- what's so great about an oyster?"

"They're pretty cool," Dan said.

Casey couldn't really argue with that. "Okay," he said. "Like, happy as a clam. You know, mollusks get an awful lot of play, these days. But really, are clams, truly, so very much happier than, say, pigs? Or emus?"

"Happy as an emu," Dan tried. "Doesn't have that ring, somehow."

"I suppose not," Casey said. He slapped off the bedside light and rubbed his cock a little through his boxers, because it was three in the morning and that seemed like something to do.

"Are you in bed right now?" Dan asked.

"What? Why?"

Casey could almost hear Dan shrug. "Just asking."

"Okay."

"So you're not gonna entertain me, then?"

"Probably not," Casey said, and then he really needed to get off the phone, because Dan was sounding cheerful and adorable and it was just enough to make Casey a little too hard and a little too horny and he really needed to get that taken care of if he wanted any sleep at all.

"Tell me a story," Dan said.

Casey laughed explosively. "I'm not gonna tell you a story, Danny," he said. "Go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll buy you a bagel."

"Onion?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay," Dan said, and hung up again.

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

What Casey needed, as it turned out, was to get fucked. And more specifically, to get fucked by someone who didn't smell like Dana, because Dana kept shooting him sad sort of conspiratorial looks during the eight o'clock rundown and she had asked him twice how he was doing, in a low slow voice that implied perhaps his dog had died.

"I'm doing just great," he'd told her both times, and meant it. He was still feeling good, but something new was going to have to happen soon, something new and spectacular.

Sally Sasser wasn't new, but she was wearing one of those shirts that crossed in front and came around and tied in back in a big floppy bow, and it was almost enough to make Casey think maybe she counted as moving on.

"How are you doing, Casey?" she asked, leaning against the doorway of his office, and he wondered if something had indeed happened to his imaginary dog that he didn't know about.

"Well, my dog didn't die," he said.

"That's good," she nodded. "I don't think I knew you had a dog."

"I don't," he exhaled, and didn't stand up. "Did you -- can I help you with something?"

She strode over to his desk and sat down across from him. "Not really," she said. "I was just coming to visit. We hadn't visited in a while."

They hadn't "visited" since back in the days before Dana and the Dating Plan, though he'd entertained calling her a couple times in there when he wanted to piss Dana off. "We sure haven't," he said.

"That's a shame," Sally said, and she really wasn't anything new at all.

"Mm," Casey nodded. "A crying shame."

Sally sighed and stood up. "Well, I can see you're working," she said. "I'll come back another time."

Dan elbowed Sally as he came into the office. "Hey, Stretch," he said. "What's shaking?"

"Casey's in a mood," she said, not looking at Dan. "I'd keep my distance."

"Yeah," Dan said. "Either that or he just doesn't like you much."

"Right," she said, giving Dan some sort of hand motion that looked like she was trying to be all cool and street and not succeeding. "Right on, buddy."

And then Sally left and Dan came and sat down across from Casey's desk and kicked his sneakered feet up next to the computer and rubbed his forehead. And Dan -- Casey had been fighting the thought all day, but there it was, stupid brain -- was most certainly something new.

"How's it goin', Case?"

"Dog's still alive," Casey said.

"I must not have put enough arsenic in the snausages," Dan said. "Next time."

"Definitely," Casey said. "How's Indiana coming?"

"Waiting on that Mark Jackson clip," Dan said. "What are you working on?"

"Early draft pick rumors," Casey said. "You hear the Kings are talking to George Parros?"

"I told you that."

"That's right," Casey said.

"Natalie told me that."

"She's a smart girl."

"That she is," Dan said, uncrossing his feet and crossing them again the other way. Casey watched Dan's sneakers for a little while and tried not to watch Dan's legs, or Dan's shoulders, or Dan's face or any other part of Dan that would send Casey's stupid brain off with ridiculous ideas for moving on and something new.

"You all right? You're a little bit staring into space, there."

Casey looked up. "I, um, yeah. I was just -- where'd you get those sneakers? I like them."

"Adidas sent them," Dan said. "Didn't they send you a pair?"

"Not as such," Casey said.

"You can probably get them at Foot Locker."

"I probably can."

Dan flopped his legs down and stood up. "Tell you what," he said. "I'm feeling good, I'm still feeling good -- aren't you feeling good?"

"I'm feeling good."

"So after the show tonight, you and me, I'll take you shoe shopping."

Casey blinked. "Someone's going to sell me shoes at one in the morning?"

"This is New York, my tall and lanky friend," Dan said. "Someone, somewhere, will sell you shoes any time you please."

Casey thought a minute, about Danny and sneakers and going out at one o'clock in the morning. But sneakers would count as something new. "Yeah, okay," he said. "We'll see how we're feeling, but, yeah."

Dan shook his head. "There's no question about it," he said. "We definitely need to get you some sneakers."

"You're kind of pushy tonight," Casey licked his top teeth, impressed.

"I'm a sneaker pimp," Dan said.

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

There was this place where Broadway crossed 6th avenue downtown, just a block up from Bleecker and Carmine, where if you looked uptown you could see the Empire State Building, and if you looked downtown, you could see the World Trade Center's twin towers, and everything was lit up and it felt like the center of the universe.

"Because," Casey said, apropos of nothing, swinging the rope drawstrings on his plastic Foot Locker bag. "There's no question which way's north here. You look up at the Empire State Building and your internal compass just clicks."

"This is the best city there is, Case," Dan agreed. "No matter where I am in the world, I've got a homing device that'll point me directly toward Central Park."

"Exactly!"

It was coming up on three am again, and it was cold enough for scarves and hats, but people were out, stumbling from the bar to the smoke shop across the street from the little red schoolhouse. New Yorkers crossed against the light, and Dan and Casey turned up Broadway and headed for the train uptown.

"You're gonna love those sneakers," Dan said. "I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my pair. You know -- maybe I should have bought them again."

"We could go back," Casey said.

"Nah," Dan said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "We've got uptown momentum. We're walking uptown. We should continue to do so."

"Okay," Casey said. "Then uptown we'll go."

"You live uptown," Dan said.

It became sort of clear what was happening. "That I do."

"I live downtown."

Casey grinned, poking at his scarf with his chin. "I think I've heard that."

Dan took a breath, stopped walking, jogged in place a little. Casey swung his plastic bag. "Hey, Case?" Dan said. "What happened with Dana?"

"I didn't tell you?"

Dan pursed his lips. "I'd remember if you told me that."

"Mmm," Casey said, playing his best casual. "I told her I was ready to move on. I'm tired of all that bullshit. Dana and Lisa are cut from the same cloth."

"I never approved of the way she treated you," Dan said.

"Lisa?"

Dan nodded. "Well, yes, Lisa, but I meant Dana."

"She's loony," Casey said.

"She's a basket case."

"She really is."

"You wanna get drunk?" Danny asked.

"Almost invariably," Casey said.

"Uptown," Dan said, and started walking again. "We'll get drunk uptown."

"Okay," Casey said, and skipped a little to catch up with Dan's shuffling pace.

"Also," Dan said. "Good for you. With Dana."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Casey," Dan said. "Seriously. Good for you."

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

"Ow! Careful, man."

Casey stumbled a little, drunk and laughing, reached down to pull Danny to his feet. "Sorry," he stage-whispered. "I tripped."

"I saw," Dan said, clutching at Casey's shoulder and laughing too. "On nothing, so far as I can tell."

"Maybe it was a GHOST," Casey said.

"Maybe," Dan said. Casey slapped around on the wall next to Dan's head, and found the lightswitch.

Dan blinked a little in the light, looking four years old and adorable. He wheeled past Casey and collapsed on a wooden chair at the breakfast table. "Shit, I'm drunk," he said, resting his forehead in his hands.

"Me too," Casey said, filling a couple of glasses with water from the tap. He brought them over and sat down next to Danny. "Drink water."

"I'm gonna have to pee, then," Dan said.

"I have -- there's a bathroom here," Casey said. "I think."

"I have to pee already!" Dan said. "But wow, let me tell you how much I don't want to get up."

"Oh, please do," Casey said. "I'm gonna have to insist you do."

"I can hold it," Dan said. "What time is it?"

Casey looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. "5:35," he said. "Soon we're gonna have, like, sun, and birds to worry about."

"Stupid birds."

Something tweeted outside the window in self-defense. "Stupid, stupid birds," Casey said.

Dan stood up. He braced himself with one hand on the edge of the table and knocked back the glass of water, then swiped a sleeve across his mouth. "Yeah, that's the stuff."

Casey stood up too.

Even through his drunken haze he knew there was the possibility Dan wasn't as clear on the reason he was here as Casey was. Because sure, there'd been flirting, or what could pass as flirting, and sure, all night at the bar Dan had had his shoulder pressed up against Casey's, but they were friends and that wasn't really new. And sure, he knew Dan liked to sleep with guys, and sure, Dan knew Casey did, but Dan had been to Casey's apartment a million times before, and through countless Knicks games and countless viewings of all five "Rocky" movies they'd sat right here in Casey's livingroom and clinked beer bottles and belched and gone their separate ways at the end of the night with all their clothes on.

"Hey, Danny?" Casey tried to stop laughing. "I was thinking -- you wanna --"

"Ah, fuck, I have to pee," Dan said, and ran away.

Casey sat down again.

Maybe it was a bad idea. Ten years of friendship seemed like a high price to pay for a cheap fuck just because Casey wanted something new, wanted to show Dana he'd moved on. And then there was a part of him that said that maybe that wasn't all it was with Dan -- maybe it was something more, maybe it was supposed to be -- but he was way too drunk and way too horny to listen to that part right now.

"Where's the light again?" Dan called from the bedroom, and Casey got up to follow him in there. He sat down on the bed.

"Next to -- to the right of the sink. To the right of the thing over the sink."

He heard some crashing, and then the light went on and Dan closed the door most of the way and Casey could hear him piss and sigh.

When Dan came out, the bedroom lights were still off but Casey had stripped down to his boxers and his t-shirt, and he was standing by the door playing with the thermostat. He felt Dan come up behind him.

"It's, like, really cold in here, right?" Casey asked.

Dan slipped a hand around his waist, and Casey tensed and stood very still in case this wasn't actually happening. "I'm okay," Dan said to Casey's neck. "I'm hot, actually."

The heel of Casey's hand was pressing into the wall, and his toes curled up away from the carpet but he was too frozen to move or speak or turn around to see if it was really Dan whose erection was lined up with Casey's ass.

"Aren't you?" Dan asked. "Because you look pretty hot to me."

Casey laughed, leaning his forehead against the little round ridged thermostat thing. "Was that a line, just then?"

Dan buried his face in Casey's back, and Casey could feel Dan's lips and his breath through his t-shirt. "Gimme a break, will you? I'm drunk and it's five in the morning."

"Nah, it's okay," Casey said, turning around, letting his hand come to rest on Dan's ribcage. "It's good."

Dan looked up at him. "Really?"

Casey nodded. "Yeah," he said. "It's good, I promise."

"Okay," Dan said. "Because, you know -- and we've known each other for a really long time."

"That we have," Casey said.

Dan hooked his thumbs under Casey's t-shirt and then slid a hand up inside, and Casey shivered a little but it wasn't cold anymore. Dan brushed across a nipple with his palm. "God, I want you," he said. "Jesus Christ."

Casey's cock twitched, huge and hard and eager, poking out the crease in his cotton fly. "Right now," Casey said, letting his fingers travel up to crawl into Dan's hair and cradle his skull. He pulled Dan toward him for a kiss.

"Excellent," Dan said when Casey pulled away and they stumbled toward the bed in the dark. "That's excellent."

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

"I am making," Casey said, as soon as he heard the bedroom door swing open some time after eleven. "One big-ass omelet."

"I used your toothbrush," Dan said, stumbling to the table and picking up the New York Times. "That's okay?"

Casey didn't turn away from the frying pan. "Sure," he said. His head throbbed with the hangover to end all hangovers, and he hadn't been able to sleep much, but Dan had gone out cold and Casey had lay very still for most of the night because he didn't want to wake him. At just past nine he got up, took four Advil, showered and read the paper cover to cover in the time it took to drink a whole pot of coffee.

"Bills finally got Donahoe for GM," Dan said, shaking open the sports section. "That might just save their asses. Is there coffee?"

Casey poked at the omelet with a spatula, and the smell of fried cheese made him want to sit down. "In the thing," he said. "If not, then in the freezer."

Dan stood up and slipped behind Casey to cross to the refrigerator. "I'll make more," he said. "You gonna want some?"

"I've had about nine cups," Casey said. "I think I'll die."

Dan stopped and turned to face Casey, paper filter in one hand, bag of Starbucks Yukon blend in the other. "So this is weird."

Casey felt himself blush. He flipped the omelet over. "A little," he admitted.

"No, not a little, Case, a lot. A lot weird."

Casey hadn't wanted to think about it, but Dan was right and it was a lot weird and they were going to walk in to work together and Dana was going to be there and it was going to be weirder. "Yeah," he said.

"I'm just saying, I want you to know I don't feel bad about what happened," Dan said. "I feel good about it."

Casey nodded and watched butter burn. "Me too," he said. "Can you hand me a plate?"

Dan set down the coffee and brought Casey a plate. "You weren't kidding about the big-ass omelet."

"Six eggs," Casey said. "I figured -- so we could eat at the same time."

"Hell no," Dan said, carrying the plate to the table. "I'm a growing boy. I can put away six eggs no problem, just watch me."

Casey shut off the burner and ran water over the frying pan in the sink. "I'll bet you can," he said.

Nobody made coffee.

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

Casey called Lisa from work, left two messages before she finally called him back at twenty to eleven.

"Is he up?"

He could almost hear her roll her eyes. "No, Casey, he went to bed about two hours ago."

"Yeah," Casey said. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she said, sounding tired.

"I want to see him. Can I have him tomorrow? Take him down to Battery Park or something? He likes to look at the boats."

"I know he likes the boats," Lisa said. "It's supposed to snow tomorrow."

Casey licked his top teeth, and through the glass window of his office Natalie gestured at him, five minutes. He nodded back. "I'll take him to a movie, then," Casey said.

"Yeah, okay," Lisa said, after a pause. "That sounds okay. I've got some stuff to do anyway, it would be nice to have the day. Come over after breakfast."

"See you then," Casey said, and Lisa never said goodbye before she hung up.

Dan had been in a good mood all day, tripping through the bullpen, casting a couple perfect slam dunks, breaking videos in the inter-office mail bin. Casey'd winked back when Dan winked first, slapped Dan's ass when Dan had sidled over to be slapped. They had onion bagels for lunch, with onions on them, and when Dan grabbed Casey's shoulders and kissed him in the hallway outside Isaac's office, they both tasted like onions and Dan made a joke about it and Casey laughed and went to find Elliot to bum a stick of gum.

It was all really easy, and it was definitely something new. And Dan seemed to be having a grand old time. Casey missed Charlie.

Spitting out his gum, he stood up, because Natalie was waving with both hands now and it was time to be on the air.

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

He didn't let Dan stay over, and Dan understood, because Casey had to get Charlie in the morning and that was a kid and a kid took precedent, Dan said. "Plus, I love Charlie," Dan had said. "Tell him hello for me."

"I'll do that," Casey had said. Dana had always resented him for spending time with his son. Dan seemed to find it attractive. Casey wasn't sure what to make of that, but it seemed like a good thing, and it seemed to make sense.

He rang Lisa's apartment number and she buzzed him in without calling on the intercom, and he wondered if he was late.

She opened the door and let him in, and Charlie was still eating breakfast, pink-tinted cereal leaving a pink trail of milk down his chin. Casey wiped it with a thumb and kissed Charlie on the head, and Charlie raised his spoon in greeting and didn't really look up.

"So what are you boys up to today?" Lisa asked, in that voice she used sometimes when she was in a good mood and Charlie was around, that one that sounded like Casey and Charlie were her pair of rascal sons and wasn't it just so cute they were going off on their own. Casey hadn't heard that voice in a long time.

"They're doing old Warner Brothers cartoons at the Museum of Television and Radio," Casey said. "Charlie hasn't seen 'Duck Amuck.'"

Lisa brightened even more. "You remember the --"

"Yeah," Casey nodded. "I was just thinking about her."

"Charlie doesn't remember her. I asked him once, because she was his favorite babysitter, remember?"

Casey sat down. "I do."

"I don't think he remembers Texas at all."

Charlie looked up, and a pink cereal nugget rolled off his spoon onto the table. "I remember Texas," he said. "I remember we had a skunk in our garage."

"We did have a skunk in our garage," Casey said. "You were only, what were you, three? Why do you remember that? You're an amazing child, it would seem."

Lisa grinned. "It would seem."

Charlie leaped to his feet. "Mom, which jacket?"

"It's supposed to snow," Lisa said. "Wear the blue one."

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

Charlie liked "Duck Amuck," and laughed at all the jokes Casey didn't realize he was old enough to get. It both impressed Casey and made him sad, especially afterward when they stood up and Casey realized for the first time how tall Charlie'd gotten, how his face had begun to sharpen and narrow, his limbs long like Casey's.

They wandered around uptown for a while, got hot chocolate at Starbucks, went over to the CSC offices so Charlie could pee and Casey could show him tapes of the Mets in the '86 series. It got dark early, and they headed back to Lisa's after seven, cold and hungry and in good spirits.

She'd made tacos, and in an uncharacteristic move, invited Casey to stay for dinner. He did the dishes, they all watched a little Must-See TV, and then Lisa put Charlie to bed and Casey gathered up his jacket and his keys and put his shoes back on.

"You're going?"

He looked at her. "It's late."

"Yeah," she nodded. "Thanks for taking him today."

"You got stuff done?"

"Yeah." Lisa collapsed in the big armchair in the corner of the livingroom, the one they'd gotten at the 3rd avenue flea market the week they moved to New York. Casey hated it at the time, it was pink and white striped and embarrassingly girly, he'd said, even when Lisa had tried to explain it was a perfect ripoff of some famous British design. But she looked good in it, now. Her toes were curled underneath her and she'd cocked her glasses up on the top of her head, rubbed her eyes with one hand. She looked at home, relaxed, happy. A little tired. Unstressed.

Casey smiled. "Okay, then," he said.

"You want coffee?"

He nearly banged into the stair, stepping up from the sunken living room. "Here?" And then he laughed. "Sorry."

She laughed too. "Yeah, Casey. Here. You want coffee? It's a Friday night, I just thought -- or do you have plans?"

He thought about Dan, for the first time all day. Dan wasn't expecting him to call, because a kid took precedence. Lisa chewed her lower lip. "No," Casey said. "No plans. I lead a very boring life."

"Likewise," she said. "I watch a lot of movies about robots, though."

Casey smiled again, more. "Charlie still likes robots?"

"He wants to build one. His science teacher thinks he's got real aptitude."

"I could have told you that," Casey said.

"You don't count," Lisa grinned. "You're family."

Casey couldn't remember the appeal of something new anymore. All of a sudden he could have been back in LA, or even Texas before things got bad, late at night after putting Charlie to sleep when he and Lisa would sit in the living room and she'd make him watch old movies and he'd change the channel after she'd fallen asleep on his lap. An hour later, invariably, she'd wake up, catch the golf scores out of the corner of her eye and say, "hey, I was watching that!" and they'd laugh, and he'd let her brace herself on his shoulder and he'd steer her to the bedroom and they'd make love a couple times and he never knew if he fell asleep first.

She stretched her arms over her head and made a croaking sound, then exhaled. "Shit, I'm tired," she said.

Casey shuffled a foot. "I'll go home."

"No, no. I didn't mean that. You know?" She stood up. "I'm gonna put on a pot of coffee anyway."

Two cups later, for no good reason, he told her about Dana's dating plan.

"That girl's loony tunes," Lisa said. "I always said."

"Crackers," Casey said. "Dan always said so too."

Lisa pursed her lips, but she didn't look upset at the mention of Dan's name, just thoughtful. "Yeah, but he never liked me either."

"He doesn't like you now," Casey said.

She nodded. "It's okay," she said. They sat in silence a little. "Hey, Case?"

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you tell me that, about Dana? I mean. We don't really talk anymore. It's just weird. Isn't it?"

He thought a minute. "It's the coffee talking," he said, to buy time, and she snickered. "No," he said. "We don't. I don't know. It's been a very weird year."

"I'm sorry about Dana," she said.

"It's over."

"Good," she said. "She really was always a crazy person, Case. I mean, you'd know better than I would, but she's nuts. I was -- I worried about her. Not like she'd turn violent, but -- I never liked how she treated you."

Casey felt a pang of wanting to spring to Dana's defense, but there wasn't much Lisa was saying that was disputable. He wondered what Dana would think if she knew he was in Lisa's apartment right now, past midnight, drinking coffee, telling tales out of school. Dana'd go ballistic. It made Casey smile just to think about it. "She really was bonkers, wasn't she?"

"Remember she used to follow us around campus, we'd have to do that thing --"

Casey laughed. "We're going to have sex now, Dana."

Lisa laughed too. "We weren't particularly subtle."

"We were positively cruel."

"She'd cry over you," Lisa said. "Cry, sometimes throw things."

"I believe it."

Lisa drank her coffee and studied the bottom of the mug a long moment. "So anyway," she said. "I'm glad you're over her."

"Yeah," Casey said. "I am." And for the first time, he felt like he was. Everything he associated with Dana was steeped in lunacy, and it exhausted him even to think about her now. Lisa looked victorious, but he decided not to think about that either.

"And nobody else?" Lisa asked.

And he almost, nearly told her about Dan, then, but he stopped himself. He shook his head. "I should really go."

She looked at him. "Don't."

He looked at her. "No?"

She looked at the table. "Charlie got an A on his history test this week," she said. "It was on the First Continental Congress."

"I'd have failed that test," Casey said. "Which ones were they?"

"Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Declaration of Independence," Lisa said. "The big boys. We studied all week."

"Go Charlie," Casey said.

"He's an awesome kid," Lisa said. "You should be proud of him, Case."

"I am," Casey said. And then, "You've been calling me Case all night."

She looked puzzled. "Don't I always?"

"Not for years," Casey said.

Lisa furrowed her brow. "What do I usually call you?"

Casey drained the last of his coffee and set the mug down on the table. He met Lisa's gaze. "You don't," he said.

Her hand felt strange on his arm, familiar. She stroked him, once, with a fingertip. "I know," she said. "I'm sorry."

He tried to remember why he hated her, but he could only remember why he hated Dana, and he'd thought it was the same, but it wasn't. He didn't even hate Dana anymore. He thought about Dan's arm around his waist, Dan kissing him. He shuddered. "It's okay," he said.

"Your show's going well?"

He nodded. "Really well."

"Good," she said. "I want you to be happy."

He wanted to ask why now, why she wanted him to be happy now when she never wanted that before, but she looked so sincere, tired and older than he'd ever known her to look. So he just said, "Thank you."

"I am too," she said. "I think so, anyway."

He slid his arm free of her hand, slowly, playing casual. "So I should really go," he said, looking at his watch but not really seeing it.

"Stop saying that," Lisa said, quietly. "You know you don't want to go."

He looked at her, and she was right. He didn't.

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

He woke up guilty.

"Oh, god, Case, you gotta get out of here." He saw Lisa between bleary blinks, standing at the foot of the bed, stuffing a pillow into a clean pillowcase. "Charlie's gonna be up soon."

He hoisted himself to his elbows. "Yeah, he probably shouldn't see me still here."

"I don't want to have that conversation with him, do you?"

Casey yawned, shook his head a couple times to free the sleep-cobwebs. The clock said six but he felt like he hadn't slept at all, nauseated and hungover and grimy. His mouth tasted like Lisa's cunt. "Can I use your toothbrush?"

She flung the pillow onto the bed. "If you're quick and quiet."

He stumbled to the bathroom and brushed his teeth twice, and scrubbed his face hard with a washcloth and Lisa's Clarins sensitive-skin soap, and he still felt tired and dirty when he tugged on his pants and stuffed his feet into his shoes and gathered up his jacket and mumbled goodbye before heading out and letting the door shut behind him.

He went home and showered and crawled back into bed, and when he finally woke up it was dark outside and it was six again.

He had eight messages, five from Dana, two from Dan, the last one from Jeremy, all wondering where he was, staggered at half-hour intervals throughout the day. His mind reeled through excuses, but nothing made him brave enough to call. He drank a glass of water and opened and closed cabinets, looking for something to eat.

Dana sounded mad first, then worried, later, and Dan's two messages sounded forced, like Dan was trying to make a joke out of the fact that Casey'd cut work for the first time ever. Jeremy sounded paranoid and mentioned something about calling local hospitals. Casey didn't believe he really would.

He found cornflakes and ate them out of the box in fistfuls, getting crumbs down his shirt. He watched a rerun of the Simpsons. His phone rang again and he didn't answer it.

"Casey, I swear to god, this isn't funny. We're freaking out, over here. Please, I'm not mad, we've got Scott Sewell covering but you need to call." It was Dana. Then, "Casey?" As if she thought he'd picked up, but he hadn't. He sat very still, eating cornflakes, until she hung up.

He watched a rerun of Drew Carey. He took another shower. Took a fistful of Advil and popped a Hot Pocket into the microwave and forgot about it and watched a rerun of Mad About You. His phone rang again, Natalie this time, telling him something about the Goodwill Games. Finally he unplugged the answering machine.

Lisa'd manipulated him, just like so many times before. Or he'd manipulated her. He wasn't sure.

It had all seemed so logical, hours ago, days ago, really, when he'd screwed up his courage and written Dana off as a nutjob and told her he was ready to move past all that insanity. Ready to move straight, as it turned out, into Dan's arms, but that was easy, that was nothing, that was just Dan, that didn't matter.

Lisa he hadn't expected, or maybe he had all along, when he'd called to take Charlie out. Even if Lisa was as much of a crackpot as Dana had ever been. Uniquely cruel. His wife. The mother of his child. Something he could always go back to, except not anymore.

But all he was sure of, he realized when he hit the bottom of the box of cornflakes, was that in the past two days, he hadn't moved on at all.

He wanted to think it was all Dana's fault. He watched a rerun of Moesha, or maybe it wasn't a rerun. Some black girl lost her virginity. The studio audience oohed their respectful oohs. He drank some more water, took some more Advil, put on flannel pajama pants and different socks. He wondered how he'd ever face his son again.

The doorbell woke him up, and he hadn't even known he'd fallen asleep, but the reruns on TV were black-and-white now, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and the clock told him it was ten past one.

He stumbled to the intercom. "Yeah?"

"Hey, Casey!" It was Dan, Dan and some traffic and the whoosh of wind. Casey buzzed him in.

"Fucking A, Case, what the hell happened to you today?"

Casey sat down on the couch and rubbed his forehead. "I took a sick day," he said.

"I think you're supposed to call in for those."

"Yeah, probably."

Dan sat down on the couch too. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

"Not even a little," Casey said.

Dan's eyes looked shiny, his cheeks pink from the cold. Snow had melted in his hair, and Casey wanted to reach up and wipe the stream of frosty water from Dan's temple, but he didn't.

"Tell me anyway," said Dan.

Casey moaned. "Dude, I slept with Lisa last night."

Whatever was bright in Dan's face disappeared, and his greyish skin turned steely. "Okay," he said, but it came out like "you fucking asshole."

"I didn't mean to."

Dan stood up. "Look, man, I don't need to hear about it. We just wanted to know you were alive. I gotta go."

Casey stood up too. "Danny. Dan. Hang on a second."

"She sucked the life out of you," Dan said. "I don't like her, I don't like you when you're with her. I don't want to think about it, okay?"

Casey blinked. "Because of what happened with us?"

"And what was that, exactly?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah," said Dan, moving toward the door. "Neither do I."

Casey wanted to fling himself on the floor, throw a little fit, get Dan to notice him or talk to him or give him anything but that cool, grey stare over his scarf. Instead he moaned again. "I hate myself for it, is that what you want to hear? Fine. I feel like shit."

Dan nodded. "It's a start," he said. "You should."

"I was married to the woman for ten years!" Casey said. "It's not like I just bumped into someone sideways at a bar and didn't know her name."

"No, because that I would have understood," Dan said. "Lisa? Lisa Carson McCall. The closest thing we know to pure evil."

Casey spat a laugh. "She's not pure evil."

"Yeah." Dan kicked the carpet. "Whatever."

Casey remembered the way Dan laughed the other night, Dan's long fingers sliding inside his undershirt, Dan's knees pressed into either side of his ribs. The way Dan laughed, the way Dan looked happy. He couldn't imagine he'd ever see that again, and he rocked back a little, struck with the palpable blow of something being over. Something that had never really started. "Danny."

"Shut up, Case," Dan said. "I'm really sick of this little love quadrangle, whatever it is. Next time you have issues with Dana to work out, include someone else in your plans. I don't have any interest in being the fluffer for your ex-wife to fuck you."

Casey walked around Dan, over to the couch again, sat down. "That's not how it was."

"Whatever," Dan said again, and he didn't sit down, but he didn't leave, and Casey thought that meant there might be room for some more conversation.

"You want a beer or something?"

Dan rolled his eyes. "No, I don't want a beer or something. Are we done?"

"We're not done," Casey said. "Danny, please. Sit down. I need you to --something went terribly wrong. I fucked up. I'm sorry. Please."

Dan sat down, in the big wood-backed Michigan State University chair. The alumni fund had sent it to Casey several years back, out of nowhere except he figured they'd seen him on national television and wanted to remind him they were there to give money to. Dan had helped him assemble the thing with a drill and a screwdriver and an allen wrench one night, over Coronas and pizza. One of the legs still wobbled.

"I'm glad you know you did something wrong," Dan said. "And not just because of me, which is, like, a whole other story. But because whatever this psychotic thing is, going on with you and Dana, you've got to find a healthier way to get it out of your system."

"I'm over Dana," Casey said. "I really am."

Dan shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't think you would have fucked Lisa if you weren't looking for her to replace some other excessively deranged woman in your life."

"Okay," Casey said, because it might be true but he didn't have any new words to use to elaborate. Dan just looked wise and sad.

"What did you feel good about, this week?" Dan asked.

Casey thought a minute. "The Cut Man show," he said. "We rocked."

Dan didn't smile. "Okay."

"Telling Dana it was over," Casey said. "That felt good."

"Okay."

Casey took a breath. "Going home with you," he said.

Dan looked away, too quick, as if he were trying to hide his expression. "Okay."

"Hanging out with my son," Casey said. "Charlie and I had a great day yesterday." It felt like fifty years ago.

"And what did you feel bad about this week?"

"Today," Casey said. "Missing work. Not calling. Leaving you guys in the lurch."

"We were fine," Dan said, too quickly. "Scott Sewell's a pro."

Casey cringed. "Okay."

"What else?"

"Waking up in Lisa's bed," he said. "Pretty much sucked."

"Okay," Dan said. "What else?"

Casey started to answer, frowned, stopped. "This is a stupid game," he said. "I don't want to play anymore."

Dan sighed. "I'm just trying to --"

"Stop trying, okay?" Casey stood up. "Stop trying so goddamned hard to save me. I'm just, I'm having some issues. I've got some shit to deal with, fine. I don't need your psychoanalytic bullshit to tell me it's not a good idea I got together with my ex-wife last night!"

Dan stood up too, crossed to stare Casey squarely in the face. "I'm just trying to be a friend. I don't have to be. You can sort out your Dana problems --"

"This isn't about Dana!" Casey made a fist, whirled around and banged the Michigan chair so he wouldn't punch Danny's lights out instead. The wobbly leg snapped, and the chair fell over. He heard his downstairs neighbor bang on the ceiling, and someone shouted "shut the hell up up there!" Casey snarled.

It wasn't about Dana. Maybe it had started that way but it was something else now, something a lot deeper and a lot scarier, something that had less to do with psychotic women and more to do with Danny, standing here, head tipped to one side, just waiting.

There was a reason he'd wanted to see Danny the other night, after the show, and a reason he'd been afraid to. Eight years together and Dan was still the only one he wanted to hang out with when he was happy, the only one who could make a good mood better. Bad moods, idiot moods were another story, but this was a happy week, Casey'd been feeling fan-fucking-tastic and look where it got him.

"Jesus, I'm good at self-sabotage," Casey said, laughing weakly.

"You're a champion," Dan said, but he still wasn't smiling.

"I took a good thing and screwed the hell out of it, didn't I?"

Dan pursed his lips. "I don't know," he said.

"Dana never made me feel good," Casey said. Dan nodded.

"No, she was awfully good at beating you to a bloody pulp," Dan said.

Casey leaned over and picked up the MSU chair and its leg. "You see what I did?"

"I'm not building that thing again," Dan said, taking his coat off and throwing it on the couch. "I still have splinters from last time. Little trees are going to grow out of my fingertips someday."

Casey smiled. "You took your coat off."

"It's hot in here," Dan said. "And, let me add, doesn't smell all that marvelous. Have you heard of opening windows?"

"It's ten below outside."

Dan wandered into the kitchen and Casey followed, still carrying the leg from the MSU chair.

"What's happening now?" Casey asked.

Dan thumbed through a Sundance catalog. "Beats me," he said.

Casey sat down at the kitchen table. "I was just -- Dana made me feel like shit. And I was so ready to give that up, the other night, and it felt so good to have that all behind me. And then it was -- there was just you." He swallowed, and thought about looking away but that seemed a little girly and coy, so he stared at Dan instead.

"Just me," Dan stared back. "And Lisa."

Casey touched his lower lip with his tongue. "You know I suck at figuring out what I want," he said. "Evidenced by the fact I was married to that woman for ten years."

"So what do you want, Case?" Dan asked, but it was a leading question and he clearly already knew the answer. Casey waggled the MSU leg.

"I want you, I think," he said.

Dan exhaled. "Casey."

"You're the only person who actually cares about making me happy," Casey said. "You're my best friend."

"Isn't that a Squeeze song?" Dan laughed.

"Queen, I think," Casey said.

"How appropriate."

"We are the champions," Casey said.

Dan headed back to the livingroom and Casey followed with the MSU leg. Dan picked up his coat and threaded his scarf around his neck. "I'm going home," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Dan said. "I'm not a babysitter."

"Danny!"

Dan smiled, a sad sort of smile, and shook his head. "Nah," he said. "It's okay. It's fine. I just want to go home, I've had a long day -- Scott Sewell is a fucking wet blanket, I had to carry him for an hour -- and I really need to sleep."

Casey set the MSU leg on the floor next to the MSU chair. "Okay," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"One never knows with you, now does one?" Dan asked, and Casey tried to grin.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Casey said.

"Good," Dan said.

&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;&amp;

It wasn't surprising that he couldn't sleep, even after green tea and an Excedrin PM, so Casey wandered back into the livingroom but there were only infomercials on now. Australian women tried to sell him leg-waxing goop. He watched, fascinated, while they glued strips of fabric to their skin and tore them off. "In a single, brisk motion," the Australian woman coached. Casey winced.

He was abso-fucking-lutely hip deep in love with Dan Rydell, was the thing.

The clock said it was five of five, but there wasn't any sleeping now. The Australian women rejoiced for their hairless legs, and Casey gave his dick a squeeze, through his pajamas, just to check.

It was Dan that had ended his marriage, even though it hadn't been love then, because Dan was the first one who made it clear that Casey didn't have to take the abuse and the disrespect Lisa liked to use as currency. Dan made Casey feel he was better than that. He was better than Dana too, crazy froot loop that she was.

Casey liked to make things complicated, he liked complicated things, but this was easy which was why he'd missed it at first. Easy, simple as the fact that he had more fun with Dan than with anyone else, simple as the fact that Dan turned him on, made his cock hard in his hand now just thinking about it. Too easy. Scary easy.

Someone read an 800 number in Australian, and Casey nearly picked up the phone. But it was five of five, and Dan would be sleeping, and Casey shoved his hand a little further into his pajamas and gave his hard cock another squeeze, just to check.

Not that he was in any hurry. He'd see Dan tomorrow. He'd see Dana, too, and apologize, because she wasn't so bad and he didn't hate her, not really. He'd call Lisa and she'd be cold and distant again, because she knew it was a bad idea too, and she'd blame him. Which was okay, because he blamed her and really it was nobody's fault.

And to the wailing ethereal soundtrack of a segment about phone psychics, Casey gave himself another tug through his pajamas, and he thought about Dan, and how he'd fix it, because he was in a good mood now and he could fix anything. Even the MSU chair.

He was Casey McCall. He'd beaten the Cut Man. So fuck 'em all. Bring it on.

#

"Yearning is not only a good way to go crazy but also a pretty good place to hide out from hard truth." -- Jay Cocks, Time Magazine, October 15, 1984


End file.
